Lot 43: Christ and the woman of Samaria; and Noli me Tangere

Placido Costanzi Rome 1702-1759
Christ and the woman of Samaria; and Noli me Tangere
oil on copper, circular
the first, 10 1/8 in. 25.8 cm.; the second 9 7/8 in. 25.1 cm. diameter
a pair (2)

Rome, Il Settecento a Roma , 1959, nos. 170-1.
London, Colnaghi, Paintings by Old Masters , 1974, nos. 30 and 32.

Jacob, 2nd Earl of Radnor, by 1814.
Jacob, 6th Earl of Radnor; Christie's, London, 27 July 1945, lot 8 (to Nabin).
Andrea Busiri Vici, Rome, by 1959.
with Colnaghi, London, by 1974.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 15 January 1993, lot 96.
with Newhouse Galleries, New York.

Placido Costanzi championed the classicizing trend in early eighteenth- century Roman painting, and his style betrays his close study of Raphael, Annibale Carracci and Domenichino. The present pair likely date from around 1750, at the same time as his Clelia before Porsenna in the Palazzo Reale in Turin (see S. Rudolph, ed., La Pittura dell '700 a Roma , 1983, fig. 232). The Earl of Radnor may have acquired the paintings directly from the artist in Rome.